TV Review: Stranger Things (Season 3)

***This review may contain minor spoilers***

Watch the SPOILER review on YouTube

“Stranger Things” is back with a strong new season that builds up on all the previous relationships, while adding new faces and powerful new threats. While season two struggled due to a slow build up, this season movie a brisk pace throughout. The threat may not be clear at first, but it’s obvious something bad is going down and it’s only getting worse.

As always, the character interactions are one of the show’s biggest strengths, and it helps immensely that there’s almost everyone has a chance to show off their impressive acting chops. Interestingly enough, everybody seems to be either fighting with each other, or on separate quests throughout most of the season. Luckily, some of the new pairings we get are a lot of fun to watch. The combinations of Eleven and Max, Erica and Dustin, and especially, Steve and newcomer Robin all lead to some great character moments. Robin is the biggest surprise. While she initially comes off as just a fun background character, Maya Hawke breathes life into the role and quickly transforms her to a quirky, smart and essential part of the crew. As far as the new villains go, we’re given mostly generic evil Russians, although the Terminator-like Grigori is quite intimidating.

The special effects are great, and the creature design is frightening and disgusting. There’s a fair amount of gore and a lot of moments that are inspired by John Carpenter’s “The Thing.” The action is generally pretty brief, but there are some solid sequences, especially in the final few episodes.

The overall story is solid, and it builds up the tension at a good pace. Each group is preoccupied with their own seemingly-unrelated investigations, and while they’re all mostly interesting plotlines, it takes a bit too long before everyone starts coming together and gets each other up to speed.

“Stranger Things” season 3 is a fun and gory ride, with characters that we care about dealing with both the reality of growing apart and the absurd of trying to prevent another world ending event. While the season wraps things up fairly well, and with some emotional goodbyes, they still can’t help but slip in a mid-credits scene that hints at a season 4.

**** out of *****

Movie Review: Spider-Man: Far From Home

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“Spider-Man: Far From Home” attempts to work as a sequel to “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” a follow-up to “Avengers: Endgame,” and a fun high school road trip flick. For the most part, it works. The only real plotline that carries over from the first film is Peter’s feelings for MJ, other than that, there’s not much else that’s touched upon. The elephant in the room is the death of half the universe from Thanos’ snap, and subsequent reversal, but this is mostly breezed through in the beginning of the film, and has no relevance on the rest of the story. That allows the focus to stick with the main plot points: Peter and MJ, the appearance of Mysterio and the Elementals, and Peter feeling the weight of Tony Stark’s shadow. There is some strong material to mine here. The blossoming relationship between the Peter and MJ is great. They have fantastic chemistry, and both have an awkwardness that compliments each other. The Mysterio stuff adds some amazing action sequences, and while there are a few expected twists, there are also a few nice touches that dig deep into the MCU archives. As far as Peter trying to become the next Iron Man, it’s a mixed bag. He’s trying so hard not to try to live up to Tony’s standards he comes off a bit as a coward. However, there are also some strong emotional moments were Peter tries to come to grips with his legacy. The weakest aspect of the movie is the comedy. While there is some genuinely funny stuff, they tend to go overboard a bit, and often rely on slapstick. There is a mid-credits and a post-credits scene, both are worth stick around for.

***1/2 out of *****